We are proud to announce the 3rd annual edition of Green Energy CSR will be held in August 2015 focussing on successful sustainable CSR case studies from four top CSR spending sub-sectors of economy.

CONFERENCE ON "Building Partnership for Sustainable CSR –Integrating Renewable Energy Interventions" (August 07, 2014) – BUILDS UP ON ITS HIGH STANDARDS MAKING THIS SECOND EDITION OF THE EVENT A HUGE SUCCESS

Marking the first anniversary of the companies act, Sharp developments - a registered NGO since 1993 working in the area of energy; environment and education, in association with International Centre for Innovation, Leadership and Development (ICfILD), organized the second national conference on Green energy based CSR interventions. – ‘Building Partnership for Sustainable CSR –Integrating Renewable Energy Interventions’. The Conference offered a unique platform to adopt and promote Renewable Energy (RE) based CSR Interventions.

The Conference was supported by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE), Government of India; Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency (IREDA), and NTPC. Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs (IICA) and IndianPowerSector.com were the knowledge partners. Panasonic India was the Technology partner and Junxion Strategies and Welspun Energy; IEX and Minda Energy were the corporate associates along with Overdrive Engineering and Verdia Technologies.

The conference was perfectly timed on the anniversary of the Companies Act 2013, to promote sustainable CSR initiatives by integrating them with the RE sector. The Conference aimed to align the public-private sector led CSR initiatives to the goal of sustainable development and to bridge the understanding of evolving CSR landscape in India.

2014-15 being the first reporting year for designated corporate and businesses, Conference delegates deliberated on reporting mechanism and the mandate of the Companies Act ; Role of implementing agencies and international perspective and best practices.

The conference strongly reiterated the need to build partnerships; inter-ministerial mechanism; create an alliance; collaborate and pool in resources in such a manner which will work actively and progressively towards energy security, energy access, development and environmental sustainability through CSR interventions.

Sharp developments in association with its knowledge partner Indian Power sector.com released a knowledge paper on different models available for RE based CSR implementation. The Conference also initiated an Alliance for Sustainable CSR which will bring together key stakeholders intending to work in renewable energy based CSR interventions.

Report on Conference Sessions

Plenary Session

Marking the 1stanniversary of Companies Act 2013 & Policy framework for Green Energy CSR, Dr. Praveen Saxena, Director General, National Institute of Solar Energy, Ministry of New and Renewable Energy gave an insightful perspective on role of renewable energy and Government of India to kick start the conference theme to the first session on.

Shri A.B Chakraborty, Chief Sustainability Officer, IICA, highlighted the mandatory requirement of corporate having funds to use them for Social Responsibility. He mentioned that most of the CSR work in the past used a kind of philanthropic approach. But it has to be methodological. It should have a time line, deliverables, and all. At the end of it, we have to evaluate how it creates employment, provides education, and improves livelihood.

Shri K.S Popli, CMD, IREDA, emphasized on the need for renewable sector. He stressed on the fact that all our energy needs should be met by renewables by 2050. He also pointed out that renewables are becoming financially viable in all sectors.

Our International collaborator, Mr. Peter ter Wenne from Junxion Strategies underlined the global megatrend of the CSR and Sustainability. He shared with the crowd that many major companies engaged in CSR are using Sustainable CSR to distinguish their brand in the competitive market.

Ms.Gayatri Subramaniam, Chief Programme Executive, National Foundation for Corporate Social Responsibility (NFCSR), IICA provided an Overview of the Companies Act 2013 and explained the need for a shift from Corporate Responsibility to Corporate Social Responsibility.

First technical session

Dr. Arun Tripathi, Director for Solar Buildings/ Solar Cities, Green Buildings at MNRE will moderated the first technical session on ‘Institutional Approach; Energy Security Green CSR Possibilities - Creating shared value’– and this session had two parts; speaker presentation followed by panel discussion. He spoke about off grid and roof-top grid connected programs. The session focused on various technologies available for CSR projects, which were highlighted through various operational and proposed sustainable models & case studies. Mr.Kalyan Kumar De, Advisory Technical & Financial at Minda Energy, Mr.Devender Gupta Director and Co-founder EcoZenSolutions, Ms.Shruti Bhatia, VP Policy and Communications, Indian Energy Exchange, Mr. Raghunath Mahapatra, Vice President and Head Strategy at Welspun Energy and Mr. Ashok Madhukar, Chairman &Principal Advisor, Strategic Development, Afro-Asian Development Consortium provided various innovative models and case studies during the session. Through this session, the esteemed gathering absorbed a lot of RE based interventions for the upcoming CSR projects. Smt. Veena Sinha chaired the panel discussion for the technical session along with our esteemed panelists Mr. A. B. Chakraborty and Mr. Ashok Madhukar.

The 2nd technical session on ‘Role of CSR Fund Manager, Financing and Strategic community investment’ talked about fund managers, financial institutions, CSR reporting and international best practices. The session also elaborated on what exactly should be the financing strategies and how the funds can be channelized in the CSR activities. Ms.Geetanjali Gaur from National Foundation for Corporate Social Responsibility (NFCSR), IICA presented reporting and communications need for CSR projects.
A panel discussion moderated by Mr.Peter ter Weeme followed, discussing about best practices for sustainable CSR.

The last interactive session on ‘Need of capacity building; partnerships and collaboration - An Alliance for Sustainable CSR’ was focussed on capacity building; need for partnerships and collaboration.

The conference explored new ideas for various models in all the CSR verticals. It ended on a positive note leaving all the stakeholders discussing about more options for renewable energy based CSR interventions, and ideas to integrate them with other CSR sub sectors.

Following up on our last year’s conference – a need was expressed to collaborate and bring together key stakeholders on one platform which would significantly facilitate renewable energy based sustainability in CSR interventions. Towards this, Sharp Developments has initiated an Alliance for Sustainable CSR which will bring together key stakeholders intending to work in renewable energy based CSR interventions. Capacity building and training would form a key component of this Alliance and opportunities to work with leading agencies such as National Institute of Solar Energy (NISE) have been initiated.